Pint-sized perfection

This cedar-clad structure integrates two terrace houses owned by the same family in Richmond, Melbourne. The fence slides back to separate the garden.
AFR

by
Ben Hurley

There are plenty of opulent ways of taking up space if you have a big, multimillion-dollar slice of land. Large circular driveways, private lifts, media rooms and generous set-backs from the boundary are among the features found on big estates in leafy suburbs.

But luxury fits in small spaces, too. Sometimes a block of land is so well located – a cliff-edge next to Bondi Beach or in the midst of a desirable precinct – that its wealthy owners have to make do with a bit less room. In that circumstance, smart design can make small spaces look big.

“I think there has been a shift in five or six years, with people being more realistic about what they need," says Sydney interior designer to the rich, Darryl Gordon.

Last year, a Sydney home on a block of land the size of a typical garage won the world’s best house title at the World Architecture Festival awards in Barcelona.

Small House in Surry Hills, by architect Domenic Alvaro, is on a six-metre by seven-metre block. It is 11 metres high with a rooftop garden. It was praised as a solution to urban sprawl.

There is a growing number of examples like it. One of Gordon’s projects involved demolishing a brick and tile house on the edge of a cliff on Bay Street, North Bondi, and building two townhouses. Each had about 250 square metres of land – smallish blocks even by inner city standards. But careful design that took in the sweeping ocean views helped them sell for a combined $7.2 million in 2010.

The homes take up almost the entire blocks, with very little space for gardens. They have sliding glass roofs and opulent kitchens. They also have bathtubs with views, but some careful design was needed to ensure the bedrooms and living areas got their share of the ocean. This was achieved by hoisting the bathtubs up so they looked through glass windows out over the bedrooms.

“Things like that you probably wouldn’t do if you had the luxury of a big space," Gordon says.

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It used to be virtually imperative that a grand house had formal living and dining rooms, but changing social norms are leading renovators or builders to question whether the space couldn’t be better used. These formal rooms are being shrunk or eliminated in place of the more flexible open-plan kitchen and family room, he says.

But some people have trouble cutting down on what they see as essentials. “I had a classic case a few months ago in Mosman," Gordon says. “The kids sat me down and said we want to make sure this is green, environmentally friendly and reducing our carbon footprint. I said maybe rethink having seven bathrooms. And they said: ‘No, we can’t possibly share a bathroom’."

A lot of things take up less space than they used to. Flat-screen televisions can sit flush with the wall, sound systems with small but powerful speakers can be integrated and computers folded up and kept in a drawer.

For those needing to take things a step further, custom joinery can integrate printers, filing cabinets and home offices into the living room. Extendable tables can be enlarged for entertaining. Fold-down beds are yet to catch on.

Another reason for making the best use of space is when families want to live together. Melbourne architect Andrew Maynard did a job in Richmond that involved integrating and extending neighbouring terrace homes owned by one family. Each block was only 140 square metres. He designed a cedar-clad three-storey freestanding structure to be built at the rear. A cavernous space between the new structure and the existing terraces was walled in with glass sheets, and contains spiral stairs. A fence separating the two homes slides back to create a single large backyard.

Maynard says our abundance of land causes us to “go wide and low" and “pancake our homes", wasting outdoor space that could be used to create a better lifestyle. He hopes more home owners will take the lead of cities like London, Tokyo and Amsterdam, where people build up, rather than out.

“Even though this is a small block I’m posing the question what if we designed this way on a quarter-acre block? What if we did this on a big block of land and had a seriously big backyard? You could end up with the most amazing green developments."

He says architecture budgets are still big despite four years of turbulent economic times, but modesty has crept into the brief.

“We had 10 years where people were doing over-the-top architecture," Maynard says. “There’s still the budgets around despite the economy, but what’s happened is the opulence, the showy architecture is being reduced. Any idiot can make something look complex, it’s making something look simple that is the hard thing to do."

Architecture firm Tzannes Associates builds some of the country’s most expensive private mansions and commercial developments but it also does a few tiny houses.

“The way we waste space on suburban homes is close to an outrage," says director Alec Tzannes. “It’s immoral for me in terms of sustainability. You can do tremendously good homes out of handkerchief sites with clever design."

His colleague Peter John Cantrill built such a home in Glebe, Sydney. It was a converted factory on a block of 90 square metres wedged between two larger buildings. The home has a two-storey structure on the southern side, which contains the living area, a bedroom with an en suite bathroom and a built-in wardrobe. A second structure to the north, separated by an internal courtyard, is used as a guest room.

To help create a sense of space, the ceilings were as high as the local controls would allow – more than 3.3 metres in the main living area. The house also has big sliding doors to the courtyard, and the windows were carefully placed to ensure spacious outlooks.

“All views are to the courtyard or the sky," Cantrill says. “There is nowhere in the house where you are aware of the surrounding dwellings."

But the biggest challenge wasn’t making the best use of the land. It was getting approval. Solar cells weren’t allowed on the roof because they would be visible from the street. The two-storey south side building had to appear to be one-storey from the street. And the owners and architects initially wanted two homes on the block, but settled for one. “We are always having discussions with local government," Cantrill says. “Quite often things are unanticipated with their controls.

“I think people undervalue what you can do on a small block. If you look elsewhere, where the price of land is much higher than here, you see the most beautiful houses built on extremely small blocks of land. In Japan, you have extremely beautiful, luxurious houses built on blocks as narrow as three metres wide and not even nine metres deep on occasion.

“I think it is an area that should be explored in Sydney. It is another way of achieving density but also maintaining single ownership of Torrens title land."